Japan Tobacco Inc said today that it would be adding Mevius Premium Menthol 8 to its 100 per cent natural menthol product range, Mevius Premium Menthol.
The new product is the first Mevius menthol product to deliver 8 mg tar.
Mevius, which is Mild Seven redesigned and rebranded, will be rolled out across Japan from mid-March.
Currently the range comprises two products delivering 1 mg of tar, Mevius Premium Menthol One 100s and Mevius Premium Menthol One, and one delivering 5 mg of tar, Mevius Premium Menthol 5.
JT’s internal research indicates that the menthol category is growing in Japan.
NDC-Infrared’s new website provides for enhanced navigation.
NDC-Infrared Engineering has redesigned its website (www.ndc.com/tobacco) and published a new, industry–specific brochure.
The new website is said to provide enhanced navigation to allow visitors to find information on the use of NIR moisture and multi-component tobacco gauges for quality assurance and process control in tobacco leaf processing, primary tobacco processing and reconstituted sheet tobacco.
‘The simplified approach to navigation makes it easy for visitors to identify their market and application area and makes extensive use of intuitive or “friendly” URLs such as www.ndc.com/reconsheet etc,’ said an NDC press note. ‘This industry-driven approach makes it easy to identify the most appropriate product or system for the application.
‘The new site offers the benefit of providing easily accessible basic information, with further information such as application notes available following registration. All registrations from NDC’s previous site will be carried over, so there will be no need to re-register.
‘The site also makes it very easy to identify the local market-relevant NDC contact anywhere in the world.’
Meanwhile, a new, industry-focused brochure is available for immediate download. ‘This describes the measurement of moisture, nicotine, sugars and temperature and covers applications in a host of tobacco processing applications,’ the note said.
‘These include: whole leaf in the GLT or Primary; strips; blended strips (lamina); re-dried cut lamina; final blend; WTS Water Treated Stem; CRS Cut Rolled Stem; re-dried stem; expanded tobacco; roll-your-own tobacco; shorts; pipe tobacco, cigar filler and reconstituted sheet tobacco.’
The New Zealand government is to go ahead with plans to introduce standardized packaging for tobacco products, according to stories by Kate Shuttleworth for the New Zealand Herald and Nick Perry for Associated Press.
However, it will hold off on implementation until after World Trade Organization challenges are concluded in respect of Australia’s introduction of such packaging late last year.
New Zealand’s associate minister of health, Tariana Turia, said she expected the WTO case to be completed within 12 to 18 months; so New Zealander’s could expect plain packs to be on the shelves sometime next year.
“It won’t take years and years,” said Turia. “We know that we’ve got trade obligations and we take them seriously… but we are confident that plain packaging can be introduced consistently with those obligations.”
// The government would probably face legal action even if Australia defeated the challenges it is facing, said Turia. But she believed the risk would be greatly reduced if Australia won its cases.
Russia’s Ministry of Health has approved new rules that will require all school children over 10 years of age to undergo annual blood and breath tests to determine whether or not they have been smoking, according to an Izvestia story.
The examination program will include also ultrasound testing of the liver, kidneys, heart and thyroid; and, for those 14 years of age and older, hormone tests and ultrasound testing of the reproductive organs.
The story said that the children would be tested for smoking through blood analysis and ‘smokerlyzer’ tests. ‘The tests will identify carboxyhemoglobin and carbon monoxide, both by-products of smoking,’ it added.
But the efficacy of the testing methods has been called into question already. Testing, it is said, will be able to tell only whether a child has been smoking just before the test is carried out, and it will not tell the difference between smoking and passive smoking.
Additionally, the smokerlyzer test has been criticized because it reveals only a positive or a negative result and shows no error rate.
British American Tobacco is looking to launch brands new to the Philippines as part of efforts to increase its market share in that country, according to a story in The Philippine Star.
Currently, the company makes only modest sales of Lucky Strike in the Philippines, but it has plans to probe the market further following the passage of the sin tax bill, which is seen as having levelled out a competitive playing field previously skewed against new brands.
BAT Philippines general manager, James Lafferty, was quoted as saying the introduction of new-to-the-market products, including possibly a ‘low-tier’ one, was part of BAT’s commitment to invest about $200 million in the Philippine market over five years following the passage of the sin tax bill.
Lafferty said the group was mulling the establishment of a manufacturing plant in the country, but added that nothing had been finalized.
“We’re certainly committed to stay,” he said. “We’re investing full speed ahead. The $200 million investment could even go up should we decide to put up a manufacturing facility here.”
Smuggled cigarettes account for about 18-22 per cent of Vietnam’s annual cigarette sales of 70-75 billion, according to a story in the Phnom Penh Post.
Last year, 12.9 billion cigarettes were estimated to have been smuggled into the country from Cambodia, up from 11.4 billion during 2011, according to figures from the Vietnam Tobacco Association (VTA).
The VTA has warned that local manufacturers will risk losing their dominant position on the Vietnamese market if effective measures are not taken to counter the threat of smuggled cigarettes.
Big tobacco companies and anti-cancer activists are each opposed to a part of the US’ Affordable Care Act that allows insurance companies to charge smokers 50 per cent more than those who do not use tobacco, according to a piece by Sarah Kliff published in the Washington Post.
Cigarette manufacturers say the policy amounts to discrimination against smokers.
And the American Cancer Society is concerned that the high surcharges could make health insurance unaffordable to cigarette smokers, who are disproportionately low income.
“We’re anti-smoking, not anti-smoker,” said David Woodmansee, the society’s associate director for state and local campaigns.
Kliff explained that, unlike other groups that had failed to get a divided Congress to kill off parts of President Obama’s signature legislative accomplishment, these unusual partners could have a shot at success because they can take the battle to individual states, which have the authority to bar health insurers from considering tobacco use in setting subscriber premiums.
Estonia’s Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications (MEAC) have criticized the European Commission’s proposed revisions of the EU’s Tobacco Products Directive, according to a story in The Baltic Course quoting LETA/Postimees Online reports.
The MEAC has said that the proposed cigarette pack revisions would disproportionately restrict the rights of businesses to use their trademarks.
Under the revisions, the text and picture warnings, along with pack identification marks, would take three quarters of the pack’s space, making it unlikely that the trademark could be displayed reasonably.
The two ministries say that bigger warnings and obligatory warning pictures on both sides of the packs are not justified as it is not possible to prove that such pictures or warnings would help promote health.
And they believe the proposed revisions might encourage an increase in the trade in illicit cigarettes.
Estonia’s draft response to the proposed directive revisions was supposed to reach the government for approval earlier this month, but the Ministry of Social Affairs, which is drafting the proposal, has asked for an extension until the beginning of March.
Prohibitive cigarette and alcohol prices encourage the smuggling of these products, according to participants at a recent conference held at Warsaw on the illicit trade across the EU’s eastern border, according to a EurActiv Poland report.
The conference, organised by EurActiv Poland with the support of Philip Morris, examined the proposed European Commission’s revisions to the Tobacco Products Directive but also looked at the wider debate on the illicit trade.
The Commission has proposed, among other things, that larger health warnings be imposed on cigarette packs and the introduction of a ban on characterizing flavors, including menthol.
Industry representatives and others have balked at the draft rules.
And speaking at the conference, Tadeusz Zwiefka, a Polish MEP from the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), said the updated directive should be carefully considered to avoid a further increase in smuggling.
“Instead of contributing to better health of Europeans, the possible rise in smuggling or production of illegal cigarettes from tobacco of unknown origin means that they will be more harmful to health,” he told the participants at the conference.
The National [US] Vapers Club is due to hold next month an event to promote research and education for electronic cigarette users while providing a venue for the latest products.
According to a PRNewswire story, the New York Vapefest, which was first held in 2010, is billed as a fundraiser and educational forum.
It is said to fund research into the safety of electronic cigarettes.
Previous events funded a peer-reviewed Indoor Air Quality study, published last fall in the scientific journal, Inhalation Toxicology. The study determined that electronic cigarette emissions posed no apparent risk to human health.
The Vapefest will be held at the Mill River Manor Best Western, Rockville Centre, New York, from 14.00 hours to 22.00 hours on March 22 and 23.
